I have a figure in a whole page, even though I do not intend it to capture a whole page. There is a lot of white space around it, and I definitely think there could be some text surrounding it. Is there a way to force a figure not to use a whole page if there is still some white space around?

(this is a two column document, if that helps. I am using figure* to stretch the figure across the two columns.)

As always a minimal example or at least more information about the used class and packages would be very helpful. See again this question of yours for adjusting the placement relevant settings for floats (figure, table).
– Martin Scharrer♦Mar 1 '11 at 16:01

Note: if the figure is to wide wrap its content (not the whole figure environment) in a \makebox[h]{\textwidth}{...} macro call. This makes it officially only \textwidth wide and centers it.
– Martin Scharrer♦Mar 1 '11 at 18:49

@MartinScharrer That doesn't seem to work when the content is an equation or gather or any math environment. What should I do in that case?
– BakuriuMar 22 '14 at 8:28

1

@Bakuriu: For such environments (which require a paragraph and don't work in the restricted horizontal mode created by \makebox) use a {minipage}{\textwidth} environment instead.
– Martin Scharrer♦Mar 23 '14 at 19:37